By Jack Glennon
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Although the Tennessee men’s basketball season will not commence for another two months, fans are already anticipating the 2025-2026 campaign to be a highly successful one.
The Volunteers are coming off a 2024-25 season in which they won 30 games, reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, and finished second in the SEC tournament.
While many fans would consider those accomplishments major components of an overall successful season, the program has yet to reach the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament under legendary head coach Rick Barnes.
Tennessee held a press conference Wednesday, with various members of the program being made available to the media as preseason practice gets underway.
After a plethora of key players from last season’s team departed in the offseason, Associate Head Coach Justin Gainey said, “When you look at Zakai and Jahmai…[they] really embodied everything about the culture… it’s a lot to ask… anybody to step into that role.”
He indicated that some of the returning players, such as Cade Phillips and Bishop Boswell, are capable of assuming leadership roles.
He later added, however, that the key to success for the team’s new leaders is “… to be authentic… You [cannot] try to be Jahmai [or] [Zakai].”
Gainey did not explicitly state, however, that leadership will have to come from players who were a part of last season’s group.
One of the new players who could be stepping into a leadership role this season is freshman Clarence Massamba, who signed with Tennessee after competing in Europe for the past few seasons.
The biggest difference between American and European basketball, he said, is “the pace”.
He later added that “… high school basketball… it’s not really organized like European basketball is…”
It remains to be seen if the soft-spoken Massamba will become a leader for a Volunteers team in desperate need of one following the departure of multiple key players.
Nate Ament, one of the nation’s top freshman recruits, was also made available to the media for the first time as a Volunteer shortly afterward.
Ament said that so far in training camp, he has been able to showcase his “… versatility… whether that’s [being] a guard or [a] forward, being able to guard guards, and guard forwards.”
While the Tennessee program does have a handful of things to iron out before the season begins, it is fair to assume that they will once again be competitive under Barnes’ leadership.
Fall camp will continue throughout August as the Volunteers prepare for their first exhibition game against Duke at the Food City Center on Oct. 26.